Mass Timber Construction Podcast

Special Guests - Chris (Woody) Wood - Installation Best Practice - Mass Timber Structures

February 22, 2023 Paul Kremer Season 3 Episode 145
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Special Guests - Chris (Woody) Wood - Installation Best Practice - Mass Timber Structures
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Show Notes Transcript

In this special guest episode, I speak with Woody about the best installation practices that StandStruct have developed over the years in the Australian market. Chris Wood is a construction specialist with an eye for detail.  A qualified carpenter backed by a Certificate IV in Building and Construction, his experience is vast and manifest. In a career spanning roles in general carpentry, Site Management and Project Management, Chris is currently employing his technical and problem solving qualities as General Manager for Standstruct. Standstruct, have successfully delivered many commercial and residential assembly projects, and Chris is proud to been an integral part of its development. His hands on experience and focus on customer service, along with early work-ethic training, ensure timely delivery and client satisfaction. Easy going with a well developed sense of humour, family man, Chris, maintains the work/life balance camping, fishing and spending time with his lovely partner, Emma, and two daughters, Olivia and Amber. You can visit the website https://standstruct.com.au/ to learn more. 

Production by Deeelicious Beats
Music "Game Play" by Quality Quest
Podcast is a Mass Timber Construction Journal Production
www.masstimberconstruction.com

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Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you're on the world today.

Welcome to the Mass Timber Construction podcast back again for another special guest episode.

This special guest episode came from you, the audience, sending me a question about what actually happens on site and how the hell do you organize the sequence of construction in the panels, make it safe, what do we do for propping, how do the panels all join, what happens in the construction sequence and what are some of the challenges.

So today my special guest is on the podcast and We've known each other for many, many years.

Did one of the first projects back at Xlam in Australia in Melbourne.

His first name is Chris and his last name just happens to be Wood.

So he is a fitting guest.

So Chris, do you want to just introduce yourself to the audience and tell them who you are and who you work for.

Thanks, PK

Yeah, Chris Wood.

Very fitting name.

I run a company called Stanstruct in Melbourne and we specialise in the assembly of massive timber structures or large engineered timber structures, panelised structures and the like.

And we've been probably in the game now for four to five years.

So, yeah, starting off with some of the infancy of mass timber construction in Melbourne.

And you know, where we are today, we're staring down the barrel of probably 29, 29 buildings delivered in the next sort of, you know, three to four months.

So it's been a, been a journey, but that's been a very interesting one.

Yeah.

And thanks for your time, Chris.

I know you're a really busy person.

And the, the thing that I want to touch on first is let's just talk about some of the valuable lessons you've learned in that time.

So from doing your first mass timber building to doing these 29 or 30 that's going to come up this ominous target, what are the things that you've done or what are the lessons that you've got that you can translate to people about how successful you have been on that journey.

It's a very interesting journey to say the least, but one key point that's been pointed through throughout the time from the start to where we are now is the level of coordination required from an offsite perspective.

I mean, we're traditionally carpenters, builders, and the way we look at things is to sort of problem solve on site at Hock and work through those issues on site, but we've sort of moved away from that now and we get jobs come across our desk and we can thumb through a set of structural drawings and highlight straight away, you know, guys, these connections aren't going to work.

You're going to run into trouble here with this sequence.

I suggest we go back to the drawing board with these items and finesse some of this stuff.

And, you know, it's taken a long time to get consultants and builders that we work for and the guys in the industry on board.

But the success of some of those projects, where we have been on really early and been able to make those calls early and then deliver the project efficiently and a successful delivery.

I think that instills a lot of confidence in people and they start to sort of let go of that fear of a subbie or a builder telling a consultant, you know, this isn't going to work and work with us and we can make this a really successful project.

So I mean, that's the biggest takeaway that I think I've seen across the journey is that level of coordination, that level of, I suppose, respect that the consultants can give to the subbies and the builders and likewise reciprocate it.

So it's a sort of a big team effort, so to speak.

And I would presume that that qualification of the sequencing and the pitfalls you see from analysing the drawings also helps you de-risk your proposal for the tender or the quote for the job to be able to secure it and gives you certainty on potentially profit margins and things like that because you know what you're doing now, yeah.

Exactly right.

So if we see a job that comes across our desk that just doesn't work, we'll work through the tender base with the tendering builders and we'll just say, we'll just be completely the honest is, so if you want us to price the conforming price, we'll 100% do that.

That's no dramas.

But we can offer you a solution and there's no bias.

We don't work with any one particular builder.

It's across the board.

So, you know, whether to help everyone, we can give you a solution that you can take back, you know, take it up the line that we think that this is the best way forward and we can give you the most efficient pricing based on that.

So, and you know, the response out of some of these estimators and things that are stuck in those conventional ways is fantastic.

It's something that I can bring to the table during their tender as well and qualify those things.

Then that way, I think you add value to the sub-trade, so where you sit as being an installer of mass timber engineered timber solutions.

You're effectively adding in value management, right.

At the end of the day, we all know that there's a slight premium that you're going to pay for a timber building and that's just, they're the facts.

If we can make that an efficient design, work with the consultants and the builders to get some efficiency in the design, get the efficiency on site, that's going to get efficiency in pricing And then we're going to see this premium come down to a really healthy playing field with conventional structure.

And we're seeing that now.

Like we're working with a lot of the manufacturers now that we've worked with for a long, long time.

And we're coming up with some really, really smart, innovative ways to connect with connections and the like that are just unbelievable.

the time on site and the labour on site, we're just seeing such dramatic decreases in those factors.

It's unreal.

And without giving away too much IP, can you give us an example of maybe just at a high level where these efficiencies are coming from.

For example, is it you're spending more time with the manufacturer to understand their processes and then that's translating into the fabrication of elements that might be more suitable for you to install based on your capacity on site.

Or is it something different to that.

When we get involved early, we will work with the manufacturers to see what their bottlenecks are and what their capabilities are and their strengths and weaknesses in their production.

And we can tailor together a solution or a connection solution that will suit both parties.

And it's so, you know, not over complicating things and coming up with complex connections, we're sort of moving into all that nice little bearing connection that might be concealed by a floor plant that goes on top, or something like you've got a post and beam arrangement, it might be as simple as, you know, a simply manufactured or machined embedded element that bears that has a bearing element that lays on top of a column that then gets covered up by the CRT.

So there's very smart ways to do it.

It's just about reducing the CNC time and increasing the ability to get that member off the hook because it's in full bearing or full contact and you can go and start spinning the crane again.

I think there's a drawing that we show in the university sector that when we're teaching students how to think about architecture, engineering and construction.

And it's actually three different drawings of the same connection, one done by the architect, one done by the engineer and one done by the constructor.

And it seems to me that the resolution of that connection, design or detail is more simplistic at the construction level than at any other level.

Is that sort of part of the secret source.

I think that is the secret.

I mean, you know, and having that, I suppose, that cross-pollination from the guy putting it together, the guy designing it, you know, you're dealing with maybe a tertiary educated guy that spent four years looking at connections in a classroom environment and you've got a guy that's out on site that is executing these connections day in, day out and can see efficiency and how could go together, but needs to be verified by someone with the intellect that can do the computation to say, well, yeah, that would work.

So it's that beautiful sort of cross-pollination to say, well, what if we tried this.

What if we changed this connection to do this.

And he does his calculations and said, you know what, that actually works.

So it's, yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for just sort of looking at something and looking at it simply, not overcomplicating it, just looking at it in a simple form, maybe stripping it back to what would a conventional house frame connection look like, and just multiplying that, sort of expanding on that.

There's tried and tested connections that have been out there for centuries, and we try to reinvent the wheel a little bit.

And in terms of working with the manufacturers, yes, there's local manufacturers here and there's another one coming online very soon.

But are you doing the same thing with European manufacturers.

Is that same dialogue and translation of pollination, cross pollination happening with European suppliers.

I think there's, I don't want to offend anyone.

I think that that we're more open to a little bit of innovation in Australia and the way we think.

We sort of just don't do things one way.

We sort of try and stress test things and move into some more efficiency.

So we probably don't have that level of, you know, cross-pollination with the guys from overseas.

It's unfortunate.

We've been in many a situation where we sort of said, you know, we don't really like this connection 'cause it takes a long time to execute on site and the response is, you know, this is how we do it.

So, and that's fine.

I mean, you know, we, you know, we don't see a huge amount of offshore jobs coming into Australia in the market.

Because, you know, we're starting to get to a stage now where the manufacturing game is catching up to the demand in Australia, which is really, really good to see.

So, and, you know, being on the forefront of that, being able to speak to those designers that are getting involved in these new and upcoming, manufacturing entities that are entering the Australian market and they're really receptive with listening to the guys on the ground.

And if we can go back to the very first job you did, it wasn't the easiest job in the world.

It was a very, very difficult job.

Do you want to describe what your first job was like and some of the challenges on that from an in-store perspective.

As we're going back in time now, and I'm going to have to dip into the memory banks, but a vertical extension on the Monash Business School in Caulfield, which is just out of sight, well, it's Metropolitan Melbourne on the outskirts.

I mean, difficulty already because you're dealing with a live site.

And difficulty with the fact that you're building off a transfer structure for a new timber structure.

So, I mean, we did a lot of work up front with the temporary works sort of things.

You can imagine a steel, basically a steel grillage that would hold a CLT floor plate and then subsequently walls and beams and walls and stairs and all sorts of things.

So, the smarts and the coordination around the temporary works on how we prop walls and things like that.

And we actually went and fabricated special sort of clamps that clamped onto the flange of the universal beams that were the substructure to then hold the panel props to hold the panel.

So there was a fair amount of, you know, coordination and sitting down in a room with the temporary works engineers, the incumbent engineer on the job and the builder as well to work out, a sequence that we can build this in that would still withstand the wind loads of a vertical extension.

Yeah, and it was the builder's first job too.

It was Kane Kane constructions as the builder.

And there's actually an iconic picture taken from the car park across the way, looked straight onto that steel transfer deck that would then finally had CLT on it.

And then there's these looks almost looks like double height double story panels up on their ends that are being propped and I just did a talk in New York City at 4am on Wednesday morning where I showed that vertical extension because the talk was all about vertical extensions and someone said how did you get the the panels to be held in a propped position independently like that.

And you've just answered it.

You've basically created this jig.

So tell me a little bit about the jig.

What was special about it to be able to get that propping correct at that time with the wind.

I suppose, well, it's unique in its nature as it sort of had a connection for the base of the prop that sort of bolted onto a, I suppose, you could probably call it two steel flat plates that were able to be sandwiched together via two structural bolts.

So basically we had a connection for the prop foot and a clamping mechanism for the flange of the UV.

So that sort of assembly sat on the prop foot.

We had a pre-installed prop on a double hop panel.

So we installed that prop while the panel's laying on the ground, as you would a conventional precast.

And again, like we're not over complicated, these are tried and tested methods of installing panels.

And we're utilizing the information that we've got for conventional construction and adapting it to a mass timber environment.

So yes, some different connections.

The CLT itself, there might be a through-bolt with a compensating washer on the external place rather than a embedded ferrule that you would typically see in a concrete panel.

So those are the small little nuances, but typically methodology wise, quite similar.

So that assembly would go onto the CLT panel in the required center.

So there might be two props per panel at that height.

And as we lift that panel up vertically and into its designed position, there would be guys on that steel deck pulling the props out and extending it to their incline and then clamping using those structural bolts to clamp down the two plates onto the steel flange.

So, and we had the ability to, so we had flexibility and sort of, horizontal movement as well, 'cause it was basically loosening two structural bolts and moving horizontally as required.

So, there was a bit of sparks in there, but you sort of get everyone in a room and you sort of spend three or four hours in a room and you'd be surprised on what innovative ideas that sort of come out of that, those sessions.

- And when you put the panels together, was there some sort of connection system between them or they butt-jointed or were they half-lapped or what was happening with the panels sitting side by side.

- Yep, so typically in Australia and NZ, All panels are half-lap, that's a preferred joint.

And it's quite an efficient joint because you're actually using the pre-decessing lap on a panel for a subsequent lap on a panel.

And that's what we call that like a seating mechanism.

So you have the ability to seat two panels together, utilizing a half-lap.

And then that's as simple as executing a required amount of screws down that half-lap satisfy the engineer so that might be, you know, for that for attempt for a temporary situation it might be 50% of those screws before you can move onto the next panel and sometimes if the next panel is propped and the subsequent panel is propped it might be just a couple of screws just to locate that in its position and then as you work up the building you can you can plating those structural connections.

So the heart that we think is a really really efficient connection for both walls and floors.

And when the crane brings the panel in and you've got this wind movement and you finally set all the panel down on the deck and you're trying to put them together, are you using panel pullers to try and bring them together or do you find that the crane's quite efficient as bringing those half-lap connections in together.

Yeah, absolutely.

it really comes down to your expertise of the crew as well.

You know, sometimes with the heavier panels, yeah, we do pull them together and we have customized, we've customized our tooling to sort of work with the largest format CLT panels you can get.

We find that the some of the proprietary stuff is probably a little bit light on for pulling some heavy panels around.

But you know, if you've got really good train rigging crew, we can get those panels to sort of seat and get the tube of the crayon right so we just come down on the hook nice and slowly and that just using that half lap we can seat the panel within a couple of mil.

So you know and sometimes it's just sort of taking the weight of the panel and giving it a nice little tap on the on the edge just to see it and then letting the self-weight of the panel do its thing.

So, you know, we use a variety of tools that we customize our tools based on the principles that you would see with the proprietary stuff.

We've sort of expanded that to a heavier gauge if you like.

And so is it true that Woods panel pullers are coming out as items to any good.

.

.

I don't know.

We're working on the patent at the moment.

I have seen things that have been made in a propriety sense.

And I think that you're right, it's made for all solutions, but customized solutions need to be something that's done internally.

And you have to try and configure something that works for you and your teams.

And it's, it'd be interesting to see what you actually use, because I think that information to feedback, especially for US listeners listening here going, wow, it'd be good to get a handle on that.

But But yeah, so if you do release woods panel pullers.

- Yeah, yeah, we're trying to come up with like a fancy name like the Panther pullers or, you know, relating it back to some sort of wild animal that we say some of the guys have, you know, have done with their proprietary stuff.

Yeah, and it's funny we touch on that.

Like as we sort of, you know, experience will sort of show that the way we assemble these buildings as well.

We've got a lot of platform style construction and we're putting a large format CLT wall on the edge of a building.

We know that those CLT large format wall panels that call it 90mm 105mm or whatever, they're going to distort, they're going to bow slightly, you know, they're never going to be dead straight.

So it's the little nuances during installation that help you out immensely like it might be as simple as a strong back or a plate screwed to the wall or assembly below on the external base of the building to ensure that that line stays straight and then putting a secondary plate in front of that wall and using special tooling to sort of pinch that wall out to a straight line on the external base of the building and then you know, executing inclined screws or whatever the connection detail is.

So there's all these small little nuances that you learn along the way when you're when you've done so many of these installs that make it so efficient.

And we can reflect that back to our pricing.

If we look at a building, we're like, well, no dramas, we can, we know what we're going to expect on this.

We allow for a little bit extra here, a little bit extra there.

And we know we can do a, these wall panels in, you know, 10 minutes a lift, no dramas.

It's like, it's those little sort of the nuance tricks that you pick up along the way that can make or break it.

It's 39 degrees Celsius in Melbourne today and it never rains in Melbourne.

Did you have any issues with water on any projects.

We have issues with water on every project, mate, to tell you the truth.

I go, water is our absolute nemesis.

And I think any any builder that's ever dabbled in massive will tell you that water is just, you know, is is just something that you need to manage.

We make a point on every post-Tender interview that we have with a potential builder that we need to come up with a water management plan.

And that's just the fact.

I mean, things like not lining timber until you're satisfied that you've got a building envelope on and you've reached an optimum moisture content.

I mean, these are just rules of the game.

game.

And if you don't abide by that with the moisture and the and the and the inclement stuff, then you're going to pay for it at the end.

But it's about having a plan.

It's just it's just just all part of it.

We're acutely aware we can't cover the cover.

Some of these huge government projects in a big tent.

And it's just how you manage the water.

It's strategically having de-watering points at, you know, to call it heavy areas of hydraulic reticulation, be it bathrooms or amenities, it's systematically working through the building and saying, well, let's put some temporary dewatering points here to get rid of the water in case of a rain event.

Let's look at maybe utilizing a product that protects the face of the timber and allows moisture to escape, but not permeate the timber.

So there's a thousand measures out there.

just about having a plan and sticking to it.

And when it comes to durability and your liabilities and the manufacturer's liabilities for a production and product perspective, because you are effectively, you are creating the superstructure, everything fits around this, is there comfort in having locally produced mass timber with treatments available in it.

100%.

I mean, as a standard, we expect that the timber has some sort of UV stability before it leaves the factory.

So that's whether that be one coat, two coats, you know, on a finishing coat on site.

There needs to be some sort of, you know, impregnated treatment on the timber before it gets to site.

Just to mitigate against that construction inclement weather.

I mean, it's as much as a Gracie Riggers fingerprint on a raw piece of timber that can only be sanded out, not white clean.

That's a huge deficit if you're doing that on every column or every vein or CLT-suff toilet.

So, you know, we do, builders need to also realize that there's an expectation of the other job that needs to be money in a budget for finishing.

You're dealing with a structural product that's at the project from structure right through to carpet going on the ground.

So you've got to appreciate that.

Would you paint a plaster wall.

You're not going to put a plaster wall up and leave it there.

There has to be a level of finishing and a level of appreciation for that.

And when you look at your QMS system quality management system, you know, the panels will come out of a factory, they'll come off the truck, they might go to a staging area or they might be crammed straight onto the site if you're efficient in your use, you put the panel in, you proper, and there's a million other trades that come through that superstructure.

Do you guys use a system to photographically evidence that install the panel.

It is a good and fit and proper panel that when another trade comes through and spills paint all over it or knocks a ladder into it, that impact point is actually a rectification, not a defect that came from your organisation.

Absolutely.

We run a very, very strict construction software management system, and that runs our ITPs, our observations, our site diaries.

You name it, it's quite a powerful tool and all our guys on site are trained in the use of that just on their mobile phones.

And we set up staged areas.

So we'll hand over a floor or a staged handover of floor.

We'll do that walk with the head contractor.

We'll walk around.

We'll document any deep Vex that are born from our work and then we'll have a sort of a procedural sign off and a handover to the builder to say that we can play in this area now.

We'll hand that back to you.

You can bring your trades in and do what you need to do, but we take no responsibility from this point for any damage that's occurred to any of the timber.

We do offer an add-on if you want us to provide rigid protection to columns and things like that.

And certainly we can look at that.

Rigid protection are two four, you know, 1200 high.

We offer all those add-ons, but it's obviously up to the head contractor to them today, whether they wanna take the risk on that or not.

- And when it comes to the exposed walls, which generally have either a defect-free facade on the panel or face on the panel, and they may be sanded.

And you've got this, what rest is sold, Gary Caulfield used to call furniture coming to site.

Do you treat that any different as a panel to an industrial panel for the super structure.

- It's about, I think it's about consistency.

So when we talk, propping for instance, to an exposed or a visual faced wall, the consistency is key.

you're not going to get rid of the fact that you're going to have to prop it.

That's a given.

99% of the time it's going to rewire a prop.

But the consistency of the location of that prop is key.

So if you're a 30 meter runner walls and every single wall, because the junctions are defined, so you will always see the shit left most of the time, every single wall, if you've got a prop whole arrangement that you've screwed and then taken out.

You've got an arrangement that's the same distance down and the same distance across on every single panel and that is uniform across the whole project.

Then that's gonna look a hell of a lot better than having someone there with a prop who's got a three meters high, 2900 high, 27 high, and it's sort of all over the shop.

So it's about appreciating the fact yes, there is going to be a requirement to prop and probably disturb that visual face of that panel.

But if you do it in a systematic and organized way, then I think that a lot of architects, designers and clients appreciate that.

And tell me about the construction sequencing.

The thing that I often marvel at is that a model comes through, it's typically an IFC imported into a manufacturer's solution, whatever they might be using CAD work, HSB CAD, whatever it is.

And then they spit out this great optimized set of panels in the project.

They then embed those panels in their billets for their manufacturing and they cut the panels.

And they can also support with a construction sequence.

So do you get involved at that stage on how that construction sequence is going to work.

Or do you say, no, no, you tell us how it's going to work.

And how does that relate as a follow-up question to things like failure of the panels to stay as a structure in the construction process.

And how does that relate to safety.

Yeah, absolutely.

We get heavily, heavily involved with the sequence.

I mean, that's probably our biggest involvement is with the sequence.

We have refined over many years how we like to do our columns, do our beams, do our floor plates, and we're talking about post and beam arrangement here, and the sequence and the way we lay out floor plates.

I mean, you will see if you allow a manufacturer to take control of the sequence, you will 95% of the time they will start from the cores and they'll move it out towards the facade, whereas we throw a span around the works there and we start in a numerical and alphabetical grid, and we work in a square away from facade out.

So we'll run a straight line down a numerical grid and then working along an alphabetical grid.

And that ensures A, our facade line is a static line, is a datum, and then we can work back into the core and we can build a redundancy in the panel and that connection at the core there, rather than you rolling out to a facade and having amount of crepe and all of a sudden you're projecting outside the building X amount and then you're coming back and we've had it happen before cutting the length of the building because you're 50 mil past the facade line.

So, it's hugely imperative that we get involved.

And that also, the second borscht, your question, also ties heavily into our temporary works.

So huge amount into our temporary works.

We, you know, it's reticulation of plant on a floor, on a floor plate that has to be fully screwed off.

It's sectioning a huge, massive building up into manageable sections that will allow the builder to continue other work.

It's a huge place, huge volumes into the safety, the efficiency of the site, the efficiency of the assembly.

So I mean, yeah, coordinate, and then we dive into that whole trucking sequence and things like that.

So that sort of all ties into a trucking and freighting sequence as well.

So it's hugely important that you have someone who's going to sort of take on that coordination and that sequencing from the start and carry it through to the end.

And then the last part is, you know, you've got your sequencing right, you've got your panels right, the manufacturer has created this, you've got your propping strategy correct, you've got your pre sequencing planning done, you're now putting it all together and then you've got to do a whole lot of screws.

Now, is it true that you really want a human type robot to do all of the screw for all the panels.

Or is it best left to a human.

Unfortunately, where we land with some of the bigger jobs, mate, and the sheer amount of screw screw variety that are specified, I'm probably sure even a robot with a complex algorithm wouldn't be able to manage the variables of how many different types of screw as we've got.

But sure 100% it is a hugely repetitive process.

It's rotation based so we sort of don't like to just keep a group of guys doing the same thing day and day later.

We have to rotate them.

You'd go, institutionalise yourself if you had to do that for a duration of a job.

But I mean, This ties back into that whole consultant design discussion of rationalising this stuff.

I mean, we can go through a job.

We've just completed a huge rationalisation on some roof structures and it's like, guys, you've specified, I don't know, seven, eight, ten different types of bolt lengths.

Let's rationalise it down to two.

We're talking increments of 10mL in a concealed situation.

It's about just sort of, and then you're not running a whole sort of shop of screws and storing 30 different varieties of screws and the guys are coming down to the container and going, "Oh yeah, we've got 150cm over here of this, for we thread and screw, but then we jump to 300 centres here, but that's a partially threaded screw.

And then, oh, but over here, we're down to 50 mill centres there, and it's a washer head screw.

So you sort of like, you know, it's just about rationalising and caping it.

Caping it's simple for the guys on the ground.

It's just, it doesn't have to be complex.

It just needs to be consistent.

And the final part really is you've got your superstructure up and standing.

You know that the engineering and the manufacturing are good, but you've also got a fire overlay, you've got an acoustic overlay.

Do you guys get involved in creating discontinuous stud walls on party walls and working out how that's all going to be framed out.

And then likewise, when it comes to applying fire caulking for joint systems in the floor for fire penetration separation, do you do all of that as well.

100% like we have a head contracting side of the business as well and we've probably completed one of the first multi-res, like Playa multi-res CLT buildings in Melbourne here that was I suppose designed on an early revision of BCA.

So you know we were stuck with those incumbent Deem-Busat as by solutions I suppose or performance solutions.

So we got heavily involved in the passive fire protection of panels, fire separation, acoustic buildups and again, very, very stringent rules around fire protecting structural panels.

The ITP process involved with ensuring that the survey is satisfied that these walls are that complain.

It's probably a very complex discussion, but I think we're starting to say a little bit of reprieve now, but we certainly do get heavily involved in those discussions around performance of panels and acoustic and fire protection.

We're not going to get into the nuances of all of that.

It was more just to see where is the workmanship and craftsmanship stop and begin and I think the reality is for many people I want to get across the message to the audience that there actually is at all levels, you know, the development, architectural engineering, engineering, flavors, acoustic fire, etc.

down to the building and then all the way down to the contracting for the assembly of the superstructure in Mastimba.

All the way along, there's actually evidence trail of what's actually changed state what's been changed in design.

And the final, I guess, sign off is really that QMS system that you take a picture of, Chris, with all the guys on site going, there's a collar around that penetration that's got a plastic PVC pipe going through it.

Here's a picture of the caulking and the size of the beads that we've got in this particular application.

This is the distance from that petition wall in CLT or concrete for the acoustic performance.

And this is the acoustic insulation we've used in that before it gets finished.

I think this is the trust assurance which comes back down.

And you as being a team that installs the structure have got such an important role to play to.

And it sounds like it's not that you're taking the translation of what the designers from a structural and architectural perspective are saying as gospel.

You're actually challenging that and going, "No, there's a better way to do it.

" Here's a way to enhance it, but it also saves from an efficiency perspective.

So, you're really contributing at an equal level, other than being a consequence, right.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I come back to that point of stress testing things.

I mean, we had a situation on the site where we saw several penetrations along the close to a wall edge of hydraulic pipe work that need to be passively fire protected.

We're talking maybe 12 penetrations requiring 12 retrospectively fit firecolours and all the add-ons that come with it.

Thinking about it outside the box and saying, "Well, hey guys, how about we build a bulkhead along that wall because it's concealed with the joinery or whatever it might be.

And let's passively protect it with the standard of 2L, 2L, 3ML, 5B.

That still meets your standard for fire protection.

So why are we all hung up about all these collars and how we treat this annular gap here and this, that and the other when we can just bring it back to the simplicity of, hey, guys, Is it build a metal frame bulkhead and wrap it in fire road blasted wall problems.

Oh, and then everyone sort of stands around scratching the head and said, well, what am I thinking of that.

Like, you know, it's it's that over complicating things again.

We keep coming back to Chris.

It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on.

We've run out of time.

I could keep talking for another two hours, but I know you're busy and I'm not.

So I will let you get back to it.

And just a bit of a shout out to Paul from WA who actually sent in the request to have someone like you on the podcast.

I hope, Paul, you've got a whole lot out of this and that Perth soon gets some notable projects that can be constructed.

And maybe Chris and his team are probably going to come over to Perth and stay in Freeman to all and enjoy a really relaxed lifestyle while they put up these really simple buildings that he's telling us about.

100% mate, watch this space.

Thanks, Chris for your time mate.

Good on you PK